In this episode of Ergasia we continue our exploration of the book The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class by Lutheran scholar Karen L Bloomquist. In this episode, Bloomquist considers the question of how the Church can proclaim the Gospel of God's redemption in way that takes into account the reality of working class oppression, and which empowers the working class to resist the structures of domination and injustice by which their lives are controlled.

References

The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.

In this episode of Ergasia, we continue our exploration of the book The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class by Karen L Bloomquist, published by Fortress Press. Bloomquist asks: what are the ways in which sin manifests itself in the structures of dominance and control that enslave working class life? How are these structures upheld by our conceptions of what sin is? And what is the relevance of the Gospel proclamation of grace, both to the realities of working class life and as a mechanism for liberation?

In this episode of Ergasia Special, your host Brendan Byrne concludes his conversation with trade unionist Chris Hughes. Together, they explore how the privatisation of faith and the withdrawal of the church from the world of work might be reversed in order to both articulate the Good News of the Gospel and discern what an alternate future to the status quo might look like.

In this second installment of Ergasia Special Episode No.2, the host of Ergasia, Brendan Byrne, continues his conversation with Australian trade unionist Chris Hughes. How does the relationship between religious faith and organised labour operate? Where are its synergies and frictions? And what is the future for both unionism and the church in an ever-changing world?

In this Ergasia Special episode, your host, Brendan Byrne, speaks with an Australian trade unionist from a Quaker background about faith, work, and how being a Christian and a labour activist do - and sometimes don't - go together.

In this epsode of Ergasia, we continue our exploration of the book The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class by Karen L Bloomquist (Fortress Press, 1990). What are the theological perspectives that have attempted to address the realities of modernity and the dilemma of the working class? Is it even possible for theology to successfuly undertake this project? What are the counterveiling declarations about human life which are made by the idolatrous ideology of modernity?

In this week's episode: the difficulty of accessing parental leave; artists asked to work for free; the "lost" generation of those born after 1973; the push to criminalise "wage theft"; and the fallout from the Financial Services Royal Commission. What are the theological implications of these realities -how do they speak of our understanding of justice, and of the distortions of "partiality".

In this epsode of Ergasia, we continue our exploration of the book The Dream Betrayed: Religious Challenge of the Working Class by Karen L Bloomquist (Fortress Press). What are the ways in which the Church deepens the wounds of classism as they are inflicted by the failed dream of neoliberalism? What does the "religion" of the working class look like, and to what hopes and griefs does it give voice? How does the idol of neoliberalism continue its hold over the working class despite their experience of its frustrations and failures?

In this edition of Ergasia Digest, we examine ongoing moves in the US to destroy the ability of labour unions to collectively bargain, the consequences of so-called "crypto-colonialism", the state of Australian workplace culture, and what happens when unions and governments support workplace agreements that have potentially negative human rights implications. Through it all, we'll pose the question: whose interest is being served - the network of human digniy Christianity understands as covenantal relationship, or the dehumanising powers of political and institutional prerogative?

In this second part of the first ever Ergasia Special Episode, your host Brendan Byrne continues his review of the Work As Worship Retreat and concludes with his thoughts on the event as a whole - including the urgent message for the so-called "mainstream church" implicit in this event.